Enchantment Review - Nov 2nd - first timer's perspective

Myself (35) and DW (39) took a 4 night cruise out of Port Canaveral on Enchantment on Nov 2nd. This was our first cruise and has been a long time coming! We booked an Eastern Caribbean on Allure a few years ago, but cancelled as we ended up moving house. We then booked the recent Allure TA Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale only to find out our friends' wedding was on and it clashed. So, after some helpful insights from people who had been on Enchantment previously, I decided to switch my booking to Enchantment.

We have travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, Australia, US, Canada and Mexico (all inclusive) but were very excited to be getting on out first cruise.

I'll try to write my review in chronological order and will point out stuff that new cruisers to Enchantment might find useful. If anyone has any questions please just ask.

Pre-Cruise

We are from Ireland, but our friends' wedding was in Chicago so we flew down to Orlando from there on Sunday. We booked a shuttle, but there was a mix-up and when we phoned there was no shuttle! Long story short, two hours after collecting our bags we were finally on our way out of the airport! We stayed at the Radisson at the Port. It is quite an old looking complex but the room itself was modern and we had a good night sleep.

Boarding day!

Woke up early with excitement. There's a shuttle from the Radisson to the port for $6 per person. We took a taxi instead - it was $15. We arrived around 10:15. The drive is about five minutes. We gave our bags to a porter and were directed to the terminal. From walking in front door to getting our sea pass took no more than five minutes. Despite the monitors saying boarding wouldn't begin until 12 noon, the Suite guests and Platinum C&A, etc. were called at about 10:45. We were on board not long after 11. You enter the ship on deck 4 right in the Centrum. The Centrum is a beautiful atrium like space spanning up to deck 10. It was one of my favourite spots on the ship. I'll talk about some of the events we attended there later in the review!

We had bought the Premium Drinks Package. Its $57 per person per day. There's loads of threads about drinks packages but we found it worked well for us. You can get any beer, wine (by the glass), frozen cocktail, cocktail, spirits, etc. up to the value of $12. There wasn't any drink we wanted that wasn't covered (including prosecco, daqueries, bombay gin, etc. You also get your coke cup to use at the free style Machines (located in a few places- deck 6 Centrum and Wind Jammer on Deck 9). You can also order soft drinks (not cans) from any bar or in the dining room if you don't want to walk to one of the machines.

Well we were on board and walked straight over to the R Bar on Deck 4 Centrum to start using the drinks package! The ship was quiet as not too many on board yet so we started exploring. (More to come when I get a chance!).

Looking forward for the rest of the review.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking forward to pictures and your opinion of this ship, especially since you've been on bigger ships, which I enjoy the bigger ships.

Boarding before noon is the best! Looking forward to more of your review. :)

So after grabbing our first drink we decided to walk the ship. Deck 4 is the bottom of the centrum. There are comfortable chairs and tables around the Centrum and nice big windows. It's a great spot for people watching. The R bar is in the Centrum on Deck 4 and there is a nice staircase up to Deck 5 above the stage. Out of the Centrum on Deck 4 is one floor of the Main Dining Room (My Fair Lady) where the two traditional seatings for dinner are held.

We strolled up to Deck 5 (we tried to take the stairs for most of the cruise) and continued looking around. On Deck 5 you'll find the other floor of the MDR where MyTime Dining is located. You'll also find the Centrum (where you can watch what's going on below), Guest Services, Boleros, Casino Royale and The Orpheum Theatre. I can't tell you much about Boleros since we didn't spend anytime there and I only looked into the Casino, but the Orpheum Theatre is a nice space. The main shows are on there, as well as the Love and Marriage Show (I'll review this later).

I took some photos so am trying to see if this works and you can see the photo (it should be a photo of the Orpheum Theatre).

Looking forward to pictures and your opinion of this ship, especially since you've been on bigger ships, which I enjoy the bigger ships.

Not been on the big ships, was booked on Allure (twice) but had to cancel so my perspective is that of someone on their first cruise!

If anyone knows how to embed a photo in a post please let me know! I have my photos saved in DropBox.

We continued up to Deck 6, so far very impressed with the look and feel of the ship. Although Enchantment is an older ship (all be it one that was cut in two and extended!) she is in very good shape. On Deck 6 you'll find Chops, The Schooner Bar, The Spotlight Lounge, the next floor of Centrum, a freestyle Coke machine, Ben & Jerry's, Cafe Latitudes, Internet Cafe, the Shops and the balcony of the Orpheum Theatre. The Schooner Bar is a nice spot with big floor to ceiling windows. The Spotlight Lounge was mostly used for a private conference. Chops is beautiful, but we'll come to that!

Deck 7 and 8 have Staterooms and Deck 9 is the Pool Deck. If you have gone up the Centrum stairs you will come out at the Solarium end of the Pool Deck. The Solarium is a nice peaceful place with a pool and two whirlpools. It has a glass roof which means its very warm. While I think they can open the roof, it wasn't open at all on our cruise. The Park Cafe is also in the Solarium. It has a good selection of wraps, fruit, salads and roast joint rolls. It doesn't open until 12:30 on the first day.

Coming out of the Solarium you'll find a table tennis table and past that is the smoking area, which runs up and behind the Oasis bar. I know this is often a controversial topic - what I can say is walking past it you might be aware of the smoke but once more than a few yards away you wouldn't know. There's another table tennis table on the other side coming out of the Solarium, which is where you'll find the towel station.

Walking away from the Solarium you'll pass the main pool and two covered whirlpools, followed by another pool, another two covered whirlpools and the kids pool. There's a big screen which shows movies and before the Wind Jammer there's the Pool Bar. On both sides there's outside areas of the WJ and you'll find the free ice cream machine.

Until I find out how to embed the photos I'll post links- hopefully you can view them.

Pool Deck

By the time we got to the WJ it was 11:30 (opening time) and there was a big line! We decided to pull up a stool at the Pool Bar and it was time for a frozen cocktail! We went with two strawberry daquerries. Nothing like sipping a refreshing cocktail in the Florida sun. Around 12:00 I ventured into the WJ. It was a circus! I just grabbed a hot dog and sat in the outside area. Im not sure the WJ is big enough for the ship, or perhaps it's layout, but at certain times I would avoid it.

Up one deck is the walking / running track. It's a nice spot with the two 'bridges'. You can do a full lap. You'll find the rock climbing wall, kids clubs and the bungee trampoline. Up one again is the Viking Crown Lounge on Deck 11. Its very much the late night venue. There's a ramp up to the Diamond / Concierge Club.

View from VCL

This concludes our walking tour of the ship! Proper reviews of everything we did to come...

Around 1:30 an announcement was made that all staterooms were ready. We took the stairs down to Deck 4 to our Large Inside Cabin.

While the room is small, there is plenty of space for two. The bathroom was on the right. It had a small shower with a curtain, a toilet and sink. The bed is tucked in between two lockers. There's room to walk on side of the bed but not the other. There's a small sofa too, which I think pulls out into a bed but I cant see how anymore than two can comfortably spend 4 nights in a room that size.

Photo of Room

The bags hadn't arrived so we left the room, but to our delight they we were at end of corridor. We unpacked and in using the hangers and drawers had plenty of space. The cases easily fit into the closet space.

As it was nearly time for Muster, we hung around the room until called. Muster is outside on promenade deck at your numbered station. It was completed quickly. Once that was done we headed up to the pool deck for sail away. There was a good party atmosphere with plenty of dancing and music. We had a few more frozen cocktails and started to get into the spirit of things!

We had MyTime Dining and hadn't booked a time for dinner. We headed back to the room and freshened up and changed. We had a drink at R Bar listening to the live music before heading up to Deck 5. We had to wait about five minutes before being given a table for 2. Our servers were Ernestina and Marvin. Both were excellent and very helpful. The drinks package covers the dining room so we had a few glasses of Merlot. For those interested, the menu was 'Mojo'.

I suppose I didn't know what standard of food to expect. You get all kinds of reviews from brilliant to horrible about the MDR food. This is of course because taste in food is subjective. We ate in MDR on three nights and I have to say I found the food to be very good. Its not michelin star by any means but there wasn't anything I didn't like. DW had aubergine tart and Salmon for main with cheese plate for dessert. I had fish rillettes and Mojo Pork with light strawberry something for dessert.

We were so happy with our service we booked a spot in the same area for night 2. After dinner we took what would become our post dinner routine of a stroll around the promenade deck. Not many people use the promenade deck but I enjoyed the air and the peace and quiet with sound of the waves.

...more to come including end of Day 1 and first impressions, but after a two week vacation Im back to work tomorrow so that's all for now!

Enjoying your review, thanks for posting looking forward to the rest.

Enjoying your review, thanks for posting looking forward to the rest.

Glad you're enjoying it, was wondering if anyone was reading! I'm enjoying reliving it anyway (especially now I'm back in work!) and hopefully something might be insightful for people going on Enchantment in the future.

Wow, its hard going back to work after vacation!

So we were coming to the end of Day one. After our nice walk on the Promenade we went to the Schooner Bar. The guy playing the piano was a very good pianist but we didn't think he was a great singer. We stayed for a while but then headed on. We went up to the Pool Deck and sat out having a drink. Jurassic Park was on the big screen.

We decided to check out the 'late' Dj music in the VCL. Probably showing we are that bit 'passed it', we didn't care for the music! We were tired after a long few days so headed back to the room with a night cap in hand. I think mine was a Bombay Gin & Tonic! I fell asleep watching overtime of the Monday night football game.

First Day impressions.

While we both enjoyed the first day, thought the food was good, were happy with our drinks package and thought the ship was very nice, we wondered if we were at an in between age of those 60+ and the party crew who are 21-30! We particularly wondered if the entertainment would be suitable for us. Tomorrow is another day though so we were ready to embrace it and see what it brought....

You should be able to move your pics into the "Public" folder on drop box. If you right click on them it should give you an option to copy public link and then you can use the embed photo option here by pasting the link into the box that comes up.

Enjoying your review! I will be sailing Enchantment for the first time in February...seeing current reviews helps to prepare me for what to expect!

You should be able to move your pics into the "Public" folder on drop box. If you right click on them it should give you an option to copy public link and then you can use the embed photo option here by pasting the link into the box that comes up.

Thanks, I work off iphone and tablet at home but will see about doing that tomorrow.

Enjoying your review! I will be sailing Enchantment for the first time in February...seeing current reviews helps to prepare me for what to expect!

Glad you're enjoying, lots more to come which is hopefully helpful in planning your trip!

Testing picture again...

Day 2 - Coco Cay

Our original itinerary had us at Nassau on day 2, but we got an email from RC a few weeks before changing the orders of the stops.

We went for breakfast in the WJ around 9:15. It was very busy. There are plenty of buffet options and an egg station where chefs appeared to making fried eggs but some people had omelettes so I guess they made them too. I grabbed some bacon and some bread.

We got a table at whats known as the WJ annex. Its the extra bit that has two coke machines and the usual water / juice stations. It was a beautiful day so we wanted to beat the crowd to Coco Cay. They have towels to check out at Deck 4 Centrum as well as stuff to buy (water, sun screen, etc). We walked down to Deck 1, had our pass scanned and walked on the upper deck of the tender.

I got some nice photos on way over, sorry I cant embed them but the links are below.

Tender photo

Photo alongside Enchantment

Docked at Coco Cay

It's a short five minute ride over to the island. It really is a beautiful place. We walked around to the left away from first few collections of sun beds and found a spot under a few trees in the shade. I was happy here. After an hour of relaxation I declared it cocktail o'clock and went to the bar. Since Coco Cay is owned by RC your drinks package works there! I had to try the island frozen cocktail - a Coco Loco! It was very nice. Make sure to ask for it without the souvenir cup to avoid the extra charge. The ship's reggae band were playing in the background and all was good in the world. There's something hypnotic and relaxing about the Caribbean sea- beautiful colours on show this day in the water.

Photo of our beautiful spot

I had another CoCo Loco before we decided to go for a walk. I had a go in a hammock, although not so successful at getting out! We walked the 'nature trail' (not much to it) before walking back along the quiet beaches past the water slides.

It was time to eat and the bbq smelled good. They had burgers, ribs, jerk chicken, hot dogs, etc. It all hits the spot without being amazing. We decided after eating I'd been out in the sun long enough so walked back to the dock (2 mins from food area) to get a tender back. I would definitely get off a ship again at CoCo Cay, we really enjoyed our stop there. Got some nice photos on way back too.

If can figure out how to get my dropbox photos to embed will do tomorrow as I continue with day 2...

Sorry about the delay, real world getting in the way...

Day 2 cont'd

We just missed a tender back to the ship so we were first on the next one. This meant waiting for it to fill. I cant get my photos to embed but hopefully you can view them when you click on the links. I got a few photos on the way back as we pulled up along side.

Sitting at the dock of the bay

Approaching Enchantment

We got back on board- don't forget to give back your towel or you will be charged. We headed up to the pool deck and it was relatively quiet. I grabbed a sunbed in the shade near the Pool Bar and DW lay in the sun. After a frozen marguerita, I strolled down to the park Cafe to see if they had the roast beef on (it was roast pork on Day 1). To my delight beef it was so It was time to try the much talked about roast beef roll. I got it with hot mustard (they also offered jus or horseradish). The beef was medium rare and tender, the roll crusty and tasty. I would certainly recommend them! I toyed with the idea of getting a second but we had dinner reservations at 6 and it was already 3:30 so I decided to leave it. Being back in reality now eating healthy, etc. I wish I had've gotten a second one!

It was formal night. While I didn't want to wear a suit, I was told by our server on night one that nice jeans and a shirt would be fine. For those interested I would say there were more than a few very well dressed with most of the rest of us smart casual.

On our way up to the dining room I grabbed a nice glass of Shiraz at the R Bar. We were seated at a window table again and were greeted by Ernistina and Marvin. My wife had the chicken salad to start and I had scallops. The small scallops came in a sort of tray with butter and garlic melted onto it. They were nice but very small. We both had the beef tenderloin which was delicious. I don't recall what we had for dessert but I ordered a neat Hennessy. We headed down to centrum on Deck 4 and grabbed a stool. By now Denis at R Bar had gotten to know us. We caught the last half hour of Rockport's set. Rockport are a truly amazing band. They're a 4 piece from the Philippines who all sing and play everything from the 50's right up to modern stuff. There were quite a few couples who were serious dancers - waltzing, etc. I was impressed with their skills. I would love to see Rockport again, their versions of Africa (Toto), Halelulia (Cohen) and Time to Say Goodbye (various) really stood out.

When they finished their set it was time for the captain's party and flag parade. There were free glasses of champagne at the captain's party. Our captain was Thomas who told us he was filling in for our cruise after coming off Adventure of the Seas. The flag ceremony was nice and cruise director Mark was very good at mc'ing. It was fun and was followed by the 70s/80s dance party (all in Centrum). The disco tunes were played and everyone was dancing and having a good time.

Later on we decided to give the VCL another go and the music was a lot different to the night before. I think DJ Amir (rightly) tailors his set to the crowd, who were more mature this night!

We were tired so hit the Park Cafe for a snack before bed. DW got some pizza, I grabbed a sandwich. The pizza is the only food on board that was bad - it tasted and felt like cardboard. We went to bed very happy after a brilliant day. Suddenly we were really getting into this whole cruising thing!!

Rolex had left us this rather cool looking towel animal

Towel Animal

Day 3 Nassau

Well not sure if anyone is reading along or not, but I've started so I'll finish!!

We had planned on hitting the MDR for breakfast but it only serves until 9am and we weren't up by 9am! Cruise Director Mark announced we were docked and had the best spot. We went to the WJ again for breakfast and sat again in the Annex. Out the window we could see the NCL Sky docked beside us. Although only my 3rd day on RCI, I had become loyal! Looking at the NCL Sky I couldn't help but think how she wasn't as nice as Enchantment! The crew were also doing their life boat drills with boats being launched. I felt good that they practice and are top of things.

We didn't have any plans for excursions since we are not into scuba and had no interest in going to Atlantis. Instead we hung out on board, firstly by the pool and then in the solarium where I had a nice snooze. The sun beds in solarium have cushions so are much more comfortable. I was feeling peckish around 1pm so walked over to other side of Solarium to the Park Cafe. Unfortunately it was closed and didn't open until 15:30. I grabbed some food at at WJ and we decided to go ashore. Its Deck one departure again. Unlike Coco Cay where you only need your seapass, you also need your passport in Nassau.

The area around the port is just shops. We browsed a few shops but didn't find it to be particularly good value. We bought a Christmas Tree decoration (we collect them from everywhere we travel) and walked back to the Ship.

Up on the pool deck it was quiet which suited us just fine. I had seen someone order a frozen Mojito the day before so decided it was time to try one - very refreshing!

We grabbed our customary on our way back to our room drink at the R bar and got ready for dinner. Rolex had left us another towel animal.

Towel Animal

We had reserved a table with Ernestina and Marvin again. Since I had booked Chops a few months ago, this was to be our last night in the MDR. I had the scallops and chorizo starter and the lamb for main. Both were very good. Can't remember what DW had to start but she had the fish plate for main which was tasty. While having dinner the NCL Breakaway pulled in beside us. That's a nice looking ship!

We gave Ernestina and Marvin a tip each and said our thank you's and goodbyes. Don't think I mentioned it previously, but our routine after dinner was to take a stroll around the promenade deck, it was nice to get some air after eating.

We headed to the Centrum to our usual spot at the R Bar to watch Rockport. Denis fixed us a drink and we really enjoyed the set from the band. I took a few photos of the Centrum. It's a very beautiful place at night.

Rockport

Centrum Elevators

View from Elevators

Thanks for your review! I'm definitely reading [emoji3] we will be the enchantment for NYE in 2016-and definitely glad to hear the drink package works at coco cay!

Thanks for your review! I'm definitely reading [emoji3] we will be the enchantment for NYE in 2016-and definitely glad to hear the drink package works at coco cay!

Glad you're reading along! I'm sure NYE will be a lot of fun. Although not a huge variety of entertainment, what they do they do very well. If Rockport are still on board check them out! I'll try finish off Day 3 tonight.

Day 3 cont'd

We decided to go to the Love and Marriage Show in the Orpheum Theatre. We took our seats on the balcony on Deck 6. It was a fun event and CD Mark did a great job of getting the couples to open up and getting the crowd involved. I have no comparison but I thought he was a good CD, enthusiastic and entertaining.

After Love & Marriage it was nearly time for the Midnight Poolside sail away Party! We took a walk on Deck 10 above the Pool Deck and I got a shot of the NCL Breakaway and a few photos of the Pool deck, which looks nice at night.

NCL Breakaway

Deck 10 'Bridges'

Pool Deck at Night

Soon after the party started. There were lots of people dancing and enjoying themselves as you can see from the photos.

Midnight Dancing

There was also the midnight buffet on deck with a collection of burgers, dogs, etc. I wasn't hungry but grabbed some food anyway! We went into the VCL for a while but were tired so headed to bed. I got a photo of looking back towards Nassau and the Breakaway.

Sailing out of Nassau by night

It had been another really fun day. We weren't too happy at the thoughts of tomorrow being our last day but were cheered up by our towel swan which Rolex had left us.

Towel Swan

Hope you can see these photos by clicking on the links! Just one more day to go in the review and my final thoughts!

Thanks for posting about your cruise! Just found the thread and glad you had a good time!

Enjoying your review. I have never sailed on Enchantment so you are giving a great description!

Thanks!

Thanks for the review, we are doing the same cruise in the spring.